St. John Fisher University

Private · Moderately Selective · NY

School data & stats

TypePrivate

LocationNY · Northeast

SettingSuburban

Undergrads2,565

Student:faculty11:1

Outcomes

4-yr grad rate65.2%

6-yr grad rate74.2%

Drop-out rate13.6%

Study abroad—

Cost

In-state tuition$41k

Out-of-state tuition$41k

Application fee—

Community

Racial diversity21.3%

Gender diversity57.7%

International0.2%

IdentityRoman Catholic

Overview

St. John Fisher University is a private Catholic university in Pittsford, a suburb of Rochester, New York, founded by the Congregation of St. Basil. It has built its identity around a small, personal campus feel combined with a clearly professional degree mix, rather than positioning itself as a traditional liberal-arts college.

Academics

Nursing, pharmacy, education, and business are the anchor programs, each benefiting from Fisher's proximity to Rochester's substantial health-care and business employers for clinical placements and internships. Class sizes are generally small, and faculty accessibility is a frequently cited strength of the undergraduate experience.

Campus & student life

The suburban Rochester setting gives students access to a mid-sized metro area's hospitals, employers, and cultural life while keeping the campus itself quiet and residential. Athletics and a close-knit residential community are central to student life on a campus small enough that most students know each other by senior year.

Getting in

Admissions is holistic but practical — for pre-professional programs like nursing and pharmacy, academic preparation in math and science carries real weight beyond a general application review. The university is not particularly essay-intensive compared with elite liberal arts colleges.

After graduation

Fisher's ties to Rochester's health systems and employers give nursing, pharmacy, and health-sciences graduates a strong regional placement pipeline, and the university's alumni network is concentrated in upstate New York's health-care and business sectors.

Worth knowing

The combination of pharmacy and nursing programs alongside education and business gives Fisher a genuinely career-track identity uncommon among small private universities its size — students should expect a more structured, professionally sequenced curriculum in those fields than a typical liberal-arts major.

sjf.edu ↗

Admissions

Acceptance rate66.4%

Enrolled mid-50%SAT 1120–1300 · ACT 23–28

Test policyoptional

Rec letters1

Deadlines (2026–27 cycle)

AdmissionRolling

Applying